This post was published long before the Mists of Pandara Expansion.
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LOLdps for the Holy Pally

I play Warcraft to entertain myself. I am -not- a healbot nor a buffbot. I heal in 5-mans and in Kara but that’s not the only thing I do. I farm, grind, and I’m still completing quests. To this end my build has a primary focus and a secondary focus.

In the above, I had to throw 5 points into Divine Strength as a placeholder to get the tree to give me the talents further down in the tree. So really there’s only 36 points in Holy that I think are critical for healing.. but you have to spend 41 points in Holy to get down to all of the critical healing skills.

This leaves me with 25 points to spend for me (ie not for the guild) and of those, at least 5 of them must be spent in the Holy tree.

Filler:
(Ret) 3/3 Improved Seal of the Crusader. Better SotC. Not terribly useful in Solo.. but used a lot when I end up as DPS in a 5-man
(Holy) 1/1 Aura Mastery. Really this is ancillary to healing. In groups, it’s good to have my aura range=my heal range. I hate that I have to spend points on this. AND most of the time I’m in melee with the tank.. so I really hate to spend points on this. I’m half tempted to drop it.. but can’t really decide.

This leaves me with one orphan point. When I respecd on Saturday I threw it in Seal of Command and swapped my gear around to a +melee +strenght set. I’m not “loving” it.. and I think I’ll respec again tonight. I don’t think I’m respecing in haste.. but I’m not seeing the power of Seal of Command.. and I’ve decided I like the +spell DPS idea better.

Especially with patch 2.3 converting +heal to 1/3 +spell, I benefit more from a fighting style that focuses on +spell than on one that focuses on melee and strength.

I realize I’m undergeared for pure Ret.. but as Holy/Ret SoC just doesn’t have the umph of SoR. With SoC I was seeing ~186-200 DPS. Before my respec I was seeing a consistent 277 DPS. So I switched back to using SoR.

Shortly after testing out my respec I was invited along on a guildie run of Shadow Labs.. as DPS. We’re gearing up a new priest healer for our Kara runs so she needed the run.. and needed the practice healing. So I swapped into my +spell gear (+469 spell, 16% holy spell crit, 136.6 melee DPS, 9.45% melee crit), wielded my (still not enchaned ) Oathkeeper** and swung for the hills.

Avenging Wrath doesn’t trigger the global cooldown.. so, everytime I try and judge, try and cast Avenging Wrath first. It worked.. but I think I’m going to move this to the cast of the Seal of Righteousness/Vengeance… any offensive seal. When I changed over to healing in a later run it was a bit weird to keep triggering the wings when I was only judging Seal of Light on the mob.

This macro, coupled with the +5% to melee crit from Conviction cause me to get an average of 319 DPS. I was at 349 but I ended up throwing out a few heals in a couple of the fights.

This was without SoC. So I think the SoC point is misspent. BUT I have no idea where to put it.

I could pull the point out of Aura Mastery and Improved Seal of the Crusader.. and take 5/5 Deflection for more parry.. but that doesn’t get me more DPS.

Hrm.. I have a feeling I’m just going to throw that point into Improved Blessing of Might.. even though that feels kind of weaksauce.

**My Oathkeeper isn’t enchanted. I went out and killed a bunch of Bash’ir Spell-Thiefs and after about 30 minutes of farmng one of them dropped [item]Formula: Enchant Weapon – Major Spellpower[/item]. I cheered. Then I looked at my enchanting and I cryed. My enchanting is at 341. The Formula is at 350. Grrr! “[2. Trade] 341 enchanter LFW, free with your mats”

1 comment to LOLdps for the Holy Pally

I really do sympathize with been Holy and Solo questing. The upcoming changes with 1/3 of +healing been converted to Spell Damage should help allot. Yet the same time i can’t speak for gearing as holy either to do DPS.

I’m 0/48/13 vs the standard 0/49/12. I have 3/3 in improved Seal of Crusader which also will be getting a change to that spell slot in a upcoming patch and the spell effect added to the base talent for Seal of Crusader. I can use the extra holy damage as i use it allot. When i’m Soloing i may judge a mob once and elite maybe more often. I have less mana as a protection paladin and so i’m not prone to burn up all that mana judging mob with SoR constantly. When in instance building threat I Judge Crusader that’s just my style of play and how i’m used to rotate my seals. For me thats where all my DPS is at. When instancing i build up my threat with judging Crusader and SoR. When i do Avenging Wrath its after i pop my Spell Damage Trinket and the mob is already on me and i don’t use a macro for that. Its all situational for me how i use my Seal & Judgement/Trinket/Avenging Wrath all for my Threat or DPS. When i’m soloing i barely ever use Avenging Wrath but thats just my style of play.